Western Michigan fails to execute on power play in final minutes of 3-2 loss to Bowling Green hockey team

Western Michigan University hockey coach Andy Murray called Friday's game against Bowling Green "a heck of a hockey game," but he was less than pleased with the way his team executed down the stretch.

Western Michigan had a guaranteed five-on-three power play for three minutes after two major penalties on Bowling Green players with seven minutes, 35 seconds remaining in the game, but the Broncos could not score and the Falcons held on to win 3-2 in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association matchup.

WMU (13-6-4, 9-4-2 CCHA) has not won at Bowling Green since 2007.

"We have multiple options on our five-on-three, but we
seem to be going to he same one all the time," Murray said. We have different looks for them to
consider and we didn't use that. I give them credit. They won a lot of faceoffs
in that five-on-three and made us chase a lot of pucks. I didn't like our
execution. I thought we had a few guys that were not as good as they needed to
be and a couple of those guys are on our power play"

Bowling Green (8-10-5, 5-7-3 CCHA) is now unbeaten in its last six games.

Chase Balisy got the scoring started in the game when the WMU forward tossed
in a rebound off a Shane Berschbach shot with 3:19 left in the opening
period.

WMU was outshot 8-4 in the first period, though the visitors possessed the
puck well.

Bowling Green entered the game with the worst power play unit in the CCHA,
but Mark Cooper found the back of the net with the man advantage to tie the
score at a goal apiece 12:15 into the second period.

The Falcons took a 2-1 lead three minutes later when Ryan Carpenter deflected
a Connor Kucera past WMU goalie Frank Slubowski 15:18 into the middle frame.

The Broncos had three shots on goal through the first 15:00 of the second
period, but WMU freshman Kenney Morrison made BGSU pay on a power play late in
the period.

Morrison fired in a goal from the blue line to tie the score, 2-2, with 16
seconds left on the clock.

Bowling Green had a 16-11 advantage in shots on goal through two periods.

Shane Berschbach

"I think we played decent offensively, but they were getting in shot lanes, especially on the power play late there," Berschbach said. "They played well defensively, but we have to adjust. That’s unacceptable."

The Falcons capitalized on a WMU turnover by Jordan Oesterle in his own zone
when Dajon Mingo found the back of the net 5:17 into the third period.

Bowling Green gave Western Michigan a huge advantage with just over seven
minutes remaining in regluation when two BGSU players were whistled for major
penalties, giving the Broncos a guaranteed five-on-three advantage for three
minutes.

The Falcons won numerous faceoffs and blocked several shots on the penalty kill, but Berschbach said the team failed to execute, even after a time out called by Murray to get organized on the power play.

"We didn’t execute our plan at all," he said. "We were drawing up plays, but we weren’t in the right spots and they were. When you have that big of a chance at the end you have to capitalize at the end."

Said Balisy: "We work on the five-on-three twice a week in practice and how to execute on it, but they (BGSU) did a great job of killing it off."

The Broncos finished with a 22-20 advantage in shots after outshooting the
Falcons 11-4 in the third.

Murray said he wasn't pleased with the shot chart, though.

"We missed the net on two-thirds of the shots we attempted tonight," he said. "That’s a major concern for us. We work on it. I’m very disappointed. We have to get more pucks at the net. We only got 22 shots. That’s below our number. Bowling Green played well. Their goaltender was good and they blocked shots, but we missed the net way more than we needed to tonight."

WMU was 1-for-3 on the power play. BGSU was 1-for-1 with the advantage.

Slubowski made 17 saves for WMU. Andrew Hammond stopped 20 shots in net for
the Falcons.